Once He Loves (Medieval 3)

Mary considered. “I think so, or she would be, but she fears the future. You see she has been betrayed before.”

“Ivo would never betray her, Mary.”

She glanced around at him, trying to see his face.

“She will be well taken care of,” Sweyn added reassuringly.

He could see Ivo now, several years into the future, with Briar and a gaggle of children. Aye, his life was like a tale, already told. If, that was, Ivo could best his brother, Miles. If he could do that, then the story would end well. If not…

Sweyn turned the horse into the lane off Stonegate. The future was not so clear for him. He supposed he would go on doing as he had always done. Moving from place to place, from woman to woman. As if in rejection of his thoughts, he tightened his hold on Mary’s pliant form, and the sweet scent of her hair made him dizzy.

“My sister thinks I am still a child.” Her gentle voice came to him from the darkness. “But I am not.”

“No, you are not,” he retorted. He knew well enough, from the feel of her in his arms, that she was all woman.

Mary seemed pleased with his answer.

“I would like a husband one day, and a babe,” she said, her voice carefully, painfully casual.

“Aye,” Sweyn replied bleakly, “I feared that you might.”

Chapter 11

The afternoon shadows were long, reminding Briar that very soon winter would be upon them. They gave a grim cast to this part of York, making it seem far more desolate than it would have been on a fine and sunny day. These buildings had been burned during the last siege of York, either to prevent occupation by the enemy or in one of their raids. Some of them had since collapsed or been demolished, and those that remained standing looked most unsafe.

Briar ran her gaze down the line of abandoned dwellings, until she came to the one she wanted. It was still there, then—or what was left of it, for as they drew nearer she could see that a good part of it had also been burned. Charred wooden beams rose against the gray sky, dark and gaunt, like clutching fingers.

“This is it?”

Ivo had been watching her. He was unobtrusive in his care of her, helping her to mount before him on the horse, making sure she was warm enough, comfortable enough, but nevertheless he was always there to lend her his hand when she needed it. As soon as she had expressed a wish to visit her father’s old home, he had agreed to take her.

If Ivo had been her gallant knight before, then he was doubly so now that she carried his child. To Briar, who was so used to looking after herself, such a state of affairs seemed strange and confusing. And very pleasant, too. She could get used to it, and that worried her.

After leaving Castle Kenton, she had always made certain she did not become too fond of anything. In case she lost it. Now Ivo had asked her to wed him. He had spoken to the priest and they only needed to set the day. But Briar hesitated.

The truth was, she did not feel as if she could entirely trust him. And he knew it. Although it had been Briar who demanded Ivo make a commitment to stay, who had needed him to say yes, it was now she who hovered uncertainly on the brink of the rest of her life. And Ivo had not pushed her; he stood back and waited.

Mayhap he knew her better than she thought.

At night, her dreams were full of him leaving without telling her, or vanishing into the night, back to his home in the south. Or dying upon some lonely battlefield somewhere. Despite all his promises, Briar was finding it very difficult to believe that he would really stay. She could not help it. Filby had abandoned her, Odo had fallen ill and was as much as dead, her father had taken his own life. Her dealings with men, so far, had led her to the conclusion that they were never there when she needed them.

“This is the house your father and Lady Anna lived in, the last time they were in York?” His voice broke

through her musings.

Briar blinked around at him, unscrambling her wits. “Aye, this is it. My father built it especially for her—as a gift. I stayed here once or twice, but mostly I remained at Castle Kenton. Jocelyn and Odo spent more time here than I. After my father died the house lay empty for a time, and then it was burned by King William’s men, or the Danes—I forget which. It will fall down one day. I don’t think anyone wants it. They see it as being tainted, like him.”

And me.

“Such things will be forgotten in time,” he said, as if he believed it.

She didn’t bother to answer him. They both knew that her father must remain a traitor, even in death, until the king forgave him. And that seemed unlikely. So Briar, as his daughter, would remain outcast, forgotten. A creature of the shadows.

Did Ivo really want such a wife? Even a man in his position must have some ambitions. Taking a traitor’s daughter to wife could hardly further his career.

She opened her mouth to ask him, but he spoke before her, and the moment was lost. Briar was not sure whether she was sorry or not. Mayhap she was a coward, but despite her own doubts, she did not want to hear Ivo’s.

“Have you seen enough, demoiselle?”